


Quid Pro Quo

by Cleo the Muse (cleothemuse)



Category: Luke Cage (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Timeline What Timeline, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 12:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16810981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleothemuse/pseuds/Cleo%20the%20Muse
Summary: Ross needs Tony Stark to back the Sokovia Accords if he's going to get the Avengers under his control, but Charlie Spencer's mother won't cooperate.





	Quid Pro Quo

**Author's Note:**

> Playing fast and loose with the MCU timeline: assumes the first half of Luke Cage season one occurs before Civil War.

Thaddeus Ross barely restrained himself from slamming the phone down, but the receiver still clacked heavily enough against the cradle that it earned him a sharp look from his PA, who’d just entered the office with a stack of paperwork. “Goodman,” Ross explained.

“Spencer's mother won’t cooperate?” the bespectacled aide inquired.

The newly-appointed Secretary of Defense let out a snort of disgust. “She thinks because Captain Goddamn America’s the supposed leader, they’re all a bunch of fucking heroes who deserve medals.”

“Tarnishing his star—so to speak—is phase two,” Kaufman mused. “Should we switch the order?”

“No, but we might have to push it back a bit.” He leaned back in his chair, swiveling lightly to face the muted TV on the wall before propping his feet up on the ottoman he kept beside the desk for just this reason. Frowning at the stock report on screen, he switched stations.

Kaufman hummed, but didn’t look up from the document scanner. 

“Stark’s got a fucking ego the size of a football stadium,” Ross muttered, sneering at Rachel Maddow’s current headline before flipping on to the next station, “but he’s loyal to what he sees as ‘his’, I’ll give him that. I told you about the time he bought my favorite bar for the express purpose of razing it to the ground _just_ to piss me off, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Even after he stopped selling weapons, he’s still one of the richest people in the world, and too damn smart for his own good. So no: I can’t go after the rest of the team until I take Stark out of the equation,” Ross finished, giving up on the national networks and channel-surfing through the regional news stations: D.C… Baltimore… Philadelphia… New York…

He stopped, recognizing the Councilwoman from Harlem who’d given him no end of grief with her grandstanding outrage during the Blonsky incident, complaining then about the military “barging in where it had no right to be”. She was being interviewed about a recent surge of violence in her community, and below her name, the chyron read “Luke Cage: Super Hero or Super Menace?” 

Dillard’s familial connections to organized crime weren’t exactly a state secret, and it was rumored the only crime her family _wouldn’t_ commit was drug trafficking. Smuggling, protection rackets, bribery and blackmail, real estate fraud, gun-running...

He glanced at the photo of Miriam Sharpe as an idea struck him. Dillard was an expert at faking the role of ‘concerned civic servant’, but could she channel that self-righteous indignation to other goals? If so, what would be her price?

Ross put his feet down, spun around, and picked up his phone again, hitting the ‘redial’ button. “Goodman!” he barked. “Plan B: Set up a private meeting with a Harlem city councilwoman by the name of Mariah Dillard. Don’t identify the office and don’t make any promises, but drop a few hints we’re looking to offload a few of the Hulk-Buster weapons Hammer cooked up.” 

At the other end of the line, his chief of staff cleared his throat. “ _Off the books, I presume?_ ”

“No books anywhere close to this, and I don’t want Dillard to know who she’s talking to until she shows up at the table.”

Hanging up the phone, Ross leaned back in his chair and put his arms behind his head. Dillard bore a close enough resemblance to the mother of a young aid worker killed in Sokovia that if she could find it in herself to play the ‘grieving, angry mother’ and get Stark off his game, she just might earn her family business a few hundred rounds of ammo designed to take down something a hell of a lot harder to kill than an allegedly bulletproof vigilante.

And with Stark off balance, the rest of the Avengers would fall into line... and those who didn't would simply _fall_.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't have been the only one to think this, right?


End file.
